Excerpt: So why is anyone claiming that inequality is our most important problem? Because the chattering class has decided that stoking envy is the only way to energize the Democratic Party. Think about the problems we really do have: runaway entitlement spending, poor public schools, welfare dependency, an overly burdensome tax system and anemic economic growth. In every case the solutions we are debating come from the right: Privatization, school vouchers, tough love, a flat tax and lower taxes on capital. ... In a Brookings Institution study, Peter Orszag (former chief economist for President Obama) and his colleagues discovered that if you raised the top tax rate from 40 percent to 50 percent and redistributed that money to people at the bottom, the top 1 percent's share of income would only decline from 16.4 to 15.6 percent. The Gini coefficient (the numerical measure of inequality) would change so little you would have to squint to see it. In other words, you can’t solve the problem by taxing the rich. If taxation is your only tool, you have to break again one of Barack Obama’s frequently broken promises and raise taxes on the middle class.

Interesting: A breakout moment for Cruz and Rubio, but will GOP voters respond?

Excerpt: For most of this year, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) have been lurking in the background of the Republican presidential campaign. On Wednesday night, they broke out into the open, delivering strong and forceful performances in a raucous and rambling Republican debate marked by squabbling and sharp elbows.

Both Rubio and Cruz have won modest plaudits for their performances in the first two debates, but there was a demonstrable difference in what unfolded on the stage at the University of Colorado. They outshone Donald Trump and Ben Carson, the leaders in the polls, and Rubio overshadowed his onetime mentor, former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

At the CNBC Republican primary debate, Donald Trump walked away from two critical elements of his immigration policy. He downsized his proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, and he disavowed his prior commitment to curb corporate use of foreign university graduates.

Maybe the best thing you can say about last night’s debate is that the GOP candidates demonstrated they could get through two hours of mostly hostile questioning. ... This was indisputably the worst-moderated debate of this young cycle, and perhaps the worst-moderated debate ever. Brent Bozell called it “an encyclopedic example of liberal media bias on stage.” If the moderators at the next Democratic debate exhibit one-half of the hostility, skepticism, and disdain that the CNBC ones did last night, Hillary, Sanders, and O’Malley will have on-stage meltdowns. As Jonah observed, it’s fascinating that Marco Rubio gets a question about his personal finances long after that New York Times story generated scoffing and skepticism, while Hillary Clinton didn’t get a single question about donors to the Clinton Foundation and conveniently timed State Department policy changes. Because of this, Ted Cruz won the night when he took a rhetorical flamethrower to the moderators, spelling out the dismissive, DNC-talking-point-style questions they had posed to each candidate. He contrasted it with the comparative softballs the Democrats received from CNN. The audience in the hall agreed and judging from the reaction on Twitter, a lot of viewers at home were applauding, too. It was Cruz’s best moment of his campaign so far. Besides that fantastic moment, Cruz just seemed to be dramatically better last night: His answers were concise, succinct, and direct; he hit the right emotional notes. When a guy gets this much better so fast, you usually want him to pee in a cup to see if he’s juicing. Marco Rubio had the second-best moment of the night when he declared, “Democrats have their own SuperPAC, it’s called the mainstream media.” (Morning Jolt is a free e-newsletter. ~Bob)

Interesting: Winners and losers from the third Republican presidential debate. By Chris Cillizza, Washington Post

Excerpt: Winners: Marco Rubio: The senator from Florida was good in the first two debates. He was outstanding in this one. The long-awaited showdown between Rubio and Bush wound up being a romp; Jeb tried to attack on Rubio's Senate attendance but got schooled by a very well-prepared Rubio. Rubio repeatedly took tough questions and turned them to his advantage, finding ways to tell his compelling personal story and steer the conversation toward what the GOP needs to do to beat Hillary Clinton. Rubio, as I've long noted, is the most naturally talented candidate in either party's field; he showed it tonight. Ted Cruz: Cruz had the single most memorable moment of the debate when, early on, he took on the CNBC moderators for the alleged "gotcha" questions they were asking. It drew a huge response in the debate hall and outside of it — and set the stage for a litany of attacks against the media from Cruz's rivals as the night wore on.

Funny how the same "liberals" who said it was racist to disagree with Obama's policies, and that saying anything negative about him made you a "hater," now feel free to call Ben Carson stupid, nuts, crazy, and insane. Imagine their reaction if you said that about Obama. Well, don't imagine--some right-wingers did, to the predictable response. ~Bob

I'm not for any candidate or any party or any news organization. I'm just noting that the P.B.S. News Hour uses the phrase "Dr. Jill Biden" to describe an Ed.D. from the University of Delaware but does not use the phrase "Dr. Ben Carson" to describe the former [director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins].

It's not fair to make illegals come here to vote. We should set up polling places in their home countries, open for say two weeks, no idea, so they can vote as often as they wish. It's the Democratic way. ~Bob

Excerpt: On October 21, PewResearchCenter released findings that show the annual rate of firearm-related homicides in America declined by nearly 50 percent between 1993 and 2013. That’s the same time period in which The Washington Post (WaPo) reported that firearm ownership doubled in the United States.

This is real technical progress for the Corps. When the first Super Stallion choppers got to Nam, they amazed everyone with what they could do. Now this model is much better in several ways. I used to work where they design and build the special bearings for the rotor heads, which is great technology. You can fire a 23mm AP round right through those bearings and you can still fly for at least 20 minutes. These choppers make our guys faster, safer, more able to do the work. --Del. Tad better than the old CH 34 Sea Horse chopper I flew in from the Iwo Jima in DaNang harbor. ~Bob

Excerpt: Proving he has learned nothing, our chief executive last week vetoed the new Defense Authorization Act. That enactment pays the salaries of our troops and buys the bullets, beans and black oil they use to fight ISIS and al Qaeda. Unschooled and unskilled in defense matters, President Obama is a Grimm fairy tale of what happens when a community organizer in chief is horribly miscast as the commander in chief.

Of course, we were only shown the action part, don't know what else transpired, but it looked a little excessive to me. In the clip I saw, I couldn't make out the race or even gender of the student. But as soon as I heard that Obama's DOJ was involved, I knew. Black officer/black student, or black officer/white student or white officer/white student would all have meant no DOJ involvement in a local matter. And if the officer is eventually cleared, as the DOJ cleared the white officer in the Michael Brown shooting, it won't matter. The left and black community still think he was at fault. ~Bob

Excerpt: Dennis Ross, former senior adviser to President Obama, arguably should have come out strongly against the Iran deal — and advised Hillary Clinton (he served in her husband’s administration) that the administration was not leveling with the American people. His interview with the Times of Israel is revealing.

Excerpt: But neither Congress nor the public have been allowed to see the final agreement the administration has negotiated. The president has not released the text of the agreement or the numerous side agreements attached to the TPP.

Worth Reading: Can Hillary Clinton Complete The Fundamental Transformation? Has this country already turned the dangerous corner? By Bruce Thornton

Excerpt: Just as they did after the first Democrat debate, the Public Relations and Marketing Division of the Democrat Party––otherwise known as the mainstream media––fell all over themselves declaring Clinton’s victory over her Democrat rivals and the Republican Party. Ignored were the damning admissions that were revealed, particularly the irrefutable evidence that Clinton knew the Benghazi attack was planned by terrorists and not a spontaneous reaction to what Clinton called “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with,” the big lie spun by State and the White House to protect Obama’s campaign for reelection. So now a full year from November 8, 2016 the Dems have all but anointed Hillary to be our next president, based on this despicable display of mendacity, hauteur, and uncontrolled giggling. If they are right, then this country will have turned a dangerous corner on the road to abandoning our republican heritage of limited government, federalism, and personal freedom.

Excerpt: It will be the first time Iran - an ally of President Bashar al-Assad - has attended such a summit with the US. Representatives of Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will also attend the talks. Earlier, the US said an invitation had been extended to Iran - a move Syria's Western-backed opposition questioned. (You can't tell who's fighting who without a program. The choice in the Middle East seems to always be between oppressive dictators who don't make trouble for us and more oppressive theocracies that make trouble for everyone. Faced with two bad choices, Obama/Clinton/Kerry always choose the greater of two evils. ~Bob)

WaPo Fact Checker: Hillary Clinton’s claim that DOMA had to be enacted to stop an anti-gay marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Excerpt: Where Clinton’s statement becomes problematic is when she says “there was certainly evidence to support” that “there was enough political momentum to amend the Constitution of the United States of America, and that there had to be some way to stop that.” This broader characterization of events frames the political momentum toward a constitutional amendment as so prevalent that DOMA had to be enacted as a defensive measure to stop the bubbling movement. That’s absolutely wrong — and thus tipped us to Four Pinocchios.

Russian Ships Near Data Cables Are Too Close for U.S. Comfort. By David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt

Excerpt: You're probably all read by now that our government masters have decreed that there won't be a Cost of Living increase for social security recipients this year, only the third such freeze in the last 40 years. The cause? The Treasury Department has announced prices are low; the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is rosy, and those old people can get along without a raise....even if they do have to pay higher Medicare premiums. With regard to prices, certainly, thanks to those damn "frackerss", our gas prices are down. However, have you taken a good look at the price of eggs, dairy, chicken and hamburger lately? How's your water and electric bill faring? How's that 25% bump up in your Obamacare premiums working out for you?

Alert Bernie Sanders: Denmark denies citizenship to Muslim who wants to replace democracy with Islamic law

Excerpt: The video below shows some of the incitement that led to this lawsuit. While counter-jihadists are frequently suspended or have their pages taken down altogether from Facebook, this naked incitement to hatred and murder is just fine in Zuckerbergland. No incitement to murder, no calls for violence against innocent civilians, should ever be tolerated against anyone. But when it comes to inciting violence against Israelis, it seems to be fine with almost everyone. (I'm retired. I have time for jury duty. ~Bob

Al-Shabaab faction pledges loyalty to the Islamic State after murdering 150 Christian students. By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org

Excerpt: The Islamic State has already won the loyalty of Boko Haram in Nigeria and many other jihad groups worldwide. Its claim to be the caliphate is validated every day, in the eyes of those who accept that claim, by the fact that none of those who have vowed to destroy the Islamic State have yet managed to do so.

Excerpt: Raised in a culture of hatred and bloodlust, what will she be as an adult? Note also that her father, who was no doubt thrilled by this savage little display, is a teacher. With what values is he imbuing his students?

Australian media covers up fact that man with meat cleaver who smashed cafe windows called himself “messiah of Islam.” By Robert Spencer, JihadWatch.org

Excerpt: But Gehry nonetheless was chosen to design the Eisenhower monument in Washington. That particular debacle is the result of celebrity multiplied by celebrity: When the time came to choose a committee to oversee the commissioning of the Eisenhower monument, the powers that be named Billy Crystal to it, along with Jerry Speyer and Jon Corzine. Crystal is a comedian, Corzine a financier who misplaces the occasional $1.5 billion, and Speyer is a real-estate developer who collects modern art made of garbage. They all have their virtues, to be sure (well, not Corzine), but none of them makes an especially good fit for the soldier who insisted on being buried in a standard-issue wooden army coffin wearing no medals or insignia. But these sorts of monuments aren’t really about the person they purport to honor; they are about the self-aggrandizement of the people who commission such monuments and oversee their development. Celebrity isn’t the enemy of the public good only, or even most significantly, on questions of taste. Minus the hypnotic power of celebrity, there would be no Donald Trump presidential campaign. Trump is a real-estate developer with a spotty record and a long history of the worst sort of crony capitalism, but he is famous — terribly famous. What is he famous for? He was transformed from a minor business figure little known outside of New York City into a nationally famous figure because of a tabloid divorce case that revealed him to be a man willing to betray his family in the cruelest and most callous way, and by a series of embarrassing business bankruptcies, most notably that of the hideous Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, the Mount Everest of bad taste.

Excerpt: You might think that the obstacles to peace are the rockets from Gaza and the brutal murders of Jews. You might be foolish enough to think that the obstacles are the ordinary Muslims who taunted and beat Adelle Banita-Bennett, suddenly widowed at 22, trying to escape the Muslim terrorist who had just murdered her husband. You might think that it’s the fact that a majority of Muslims in ’67 Israel spit on the Two-State Solution and that PLO boss Abbas rejected the Oslo Accords in a speech at the United Nations.